{"title":"The impact of automation on firms' reporting quality","authors":"David Oesch, Tanja Walser","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102683","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102683","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates how advances in automation technologies affect firms' information environments. Using an instrumental variable research design that exploits exogenous variation in industrial robot adoption, we present robust evidence that an increase in exposure to robots causes firms to lower financial reporting quality. As automation technology adoption entails adoption costs, we find that the effect is attributable to management's strategic increase of financial reporting discretion. In light of the rapid rise of automation technologies our paper provides important insights how such technologies impact firms' reporting quality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"92 ","pages":"Article 102683"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143697624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Optimal financing of highly innovative projects under double moral hazard","authors":"Gino Loyola , Yolanda Portilla","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102684","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102684","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A model is proposed for analyzing the financing of highly innovative projects undertaken by an investor and an entrepreneur as partners. It is shown that the optimal contract rewards the entrepreneur for success and failure but penalizes him for moderate returns. This theoretical scheme can be implemented by a hybrid financial structure that combines inside and outside equity and that is subsequently balanced by means of a reassignment mechanism contingent upon the project’s returns. Two settings are compared, one in which either of the partners innovates but not both (single moral hazard) and another in which both partners do (double moral hazard). We show that which setting is best depends on the degree of technological dependence between the partners’ innovation processes. This may explain the coexistence in practice of different financing and partnership arrangements.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102684"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142534946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does relaxing household credit constraints hurt small business lending? Evidence from a policy change in Texas","authors":"Berrak Bahadir , Inci Gumus , Matthew Schaffer","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102682","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102682","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper studies the relationship between household credit and small business loans using the 1997 liberalization of home equity lending in Texas. First, we build a closed economy general equilibrium model that examines two opposing channels: a negative crowding out effect and a positive collateral effect. Our analysis shows that, following a household credit expansion, the crowding out effect dominates and leads to an overall decline in firm borrowing. We test this result empirically by exploiting the liberalization of home equity loans in Texas. The exogenous increase in household credit brought on by the liberalization results in a crowding out of business lending, as small business loan growth declines by roughly 20 percentage points. This negative effect is dampened in counties that experienced stronger house price growth, providing evidence of a subsidiary collateral effect. We further explore the bank-level factors that could influence the strength of the crowding out effect and find that the effect is weaker for banks with easier access to funding and a specialization in business lending.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102682"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142432662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hye Seung Lee , Jesus M. Salas , Ke Shen , Ke Yang
{"title":"The effect of bond ownership structure on ESG performance","authors":"Hye Seung Lee , Jesus M. Salas , Ke Shen , Ke Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102678","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102678","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine whether firms' ESG performance is influenced by bondholder preferences. We argue that insurance companies have unique incentives to monitor bond issuers' ESG performance because insurers face enhanced exposures to ESG shocks in their balance sheets and trading operations. Consistent with this argument, we find that firms with higher bond ownership by insurance companies are associated with higher future ESG ratings. To address potential identification concerns, we test changes in bond issuers' ESG ratings following the initial bond investment by insurance companies. We find that firms' ESG performance improves after insurance companies' initial bond investment. We also find that this improvement in ESG performance is concentrated in firms with greater reliance on bond financing and investment capital from insurance companies. Our study underscores the importance of bond ownership structure in influencing corporate ESG performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102678"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142445680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yuyuan Chang , Nicolai J. Foss , Shuping Li , Jing Xie
{"title":"Compensation peer effects of corporate social responsibility","authors":"Yuyuan Chang , Nicolai J. Foss , Shuping Li , Jing Xie","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102679","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102679","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article examines the role of CEOs' personal incentives in steering their firms' CSR initiatives following their compensation peers, subsequently influencing their career trajectories within their current firms. Specifically, we find that firms exhibit better corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance if their compensation peer (CP) firms demonstrated superior CSR performance in the prior year (i.e., the CP effect). To mitigate the endogeneity concern, we conduct analyses based on the termination (initiation) of CPs' peer relation with the focal firm, a benchmark test, and an instrumental variable analysis. To establish the mechanisms of internal monetary rewards from their firms and enhanced external career tournaments in the labor market, we show the CP effect is stronger if the focal company CEOs have compensation contracts specifying CSR performance targets, face a larger compensation shortfall relative to their CP counterparts, operate in closer geographical proximity to those CP CEOs, or hire more compensation consultants. Furthermore, we find that the probability and quantity of CSR contracts received by focal firms' CEOs increase with CPs' lagged CSR. CEOs receive higher compensation than those in CP firms after they deliver better CSR performance than their CPs. Overall, our paper highlights the role of CEOs' personal incentives in steering their firms' CSR initiatives, subsequently influencing their career trajectories within their current organizations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102679"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142441186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Supply chain vertical common ownership and cost of loans","authors":"Haowen Tian , Junkai Wang , Sirui Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102677","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102677","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores how vertical common ownership reduces supply chain risk and influences creditors' decisions, focusing on the cost of loans. Findings reveal that creditors view such firms as less likely to default, evidenced by lower loan spreads. This effect is stronger for suppliers with more relationship-specific investments, weaker bargaining power, higher information asymmetry, and long-term common institutional ownership. Results remain robust through quasi-natural experiments from financial institutions' M&As, supplier-customer pair analyses, etc. We also compare vertical common ownership with the horizontal one and demonstrate its incremental contributions. Moreover, the fraction of customer sales and the institutional investors' share ownership likely influence the likelihood of vertical common ownership, with our results consistently holding under Heckman analysis. Overall, the results suggest that vertical common ownership enhances coordination and monitoring, reducing risks and creditor risk premiums. The findings may offer valuable insights into managing supply chain risks and understanding their financial implications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102677"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142428546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impact of internal governance on investment policy: Evidence from CEO voluntary turnovers","authors":"Ivan E. Brick , Darius Palia , Yankuo Qiao","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102676","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102676","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The theoretical and empirical literature suggests that CEO might not make risky long-term investments if the CEO believes that the benefit of such investments would not materialize or is not recognized by the market until after the CEO has retired. This paper tests the predictions of the Acharya, Myers, and Rajan (2011) internal governance model to counteract the CEO’s tendency to forego such investments on a sample of voluntary CEO turnovers. We find that the optimal level of sharing of tasks between the CEO and her top-management team, the firm’s internal governance, is dependent on the CEO’s career horizon. Additionally, we find the effect of internal governance only matters for older CEOs. We also find that the closer the internal governance is to the optimal level, the smaller is the underinvestment for an older outgoing CEO. We find that the new incoming CEO divests profitably the assets acquired under good internal governance. Finally, we find that optimal internal governance is found to have positive effects on corporate innovation. Our results are robust to continuous matching by generalized propensity score and controlling for the CEO’s explicit pay-performance sensitivity, succession plan, and pay duration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102676"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142445679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does tax reform affect labor investment efficiency?","authors":"Steven E. Kaplan , Eugie Y. Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102673","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102673","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate whether the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) impacts labor investment efficiency. By lowering the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, ceteris paribus, the TCJA provides firms with a cash windfall. Based on difference-in-differences analysis using non-US based firms as a control group, we find that in the post-TCJA years, labor investment inefficiency increased for US based, but not for non-US based, firms. Further, the increase in labor investment inefficiency is concentrated among US firms with high cash holdings, suggesting that these firms face higher agency costs in the post-TCJA period. Additional analysis suggests that in the post-TCJA period, managers of high cash holding firms were seeking a quiet life. We find weak evidence that strong corporate governance mitigated this negative behavior. Overall, our findings show that tax reform can impact labor investment efficiency and should be of interest to investors, boards of directors, tax authorities, and to researchers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102673"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142428545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Corporate social responsibility and external disruptions","authors":"Po-Hsuan Hsu , Hsiao-Hui Lee , Long Yi","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102675","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102675","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We propose that corporate social responsibility (CSR) investment serves as an intangible investment in stakeholder relationships to guard against external disruptions to firms' operations and tangible assets. Using a difference-in-differences setting and a database of factory locations, we show that manufacturing firms with higher CSR ratings are much less affected by major natural disasters in terms of operating performance. We then propose two mechanisms through which CSR engagement shields manufacturing firms against external disruptions: employee motivation and customer loyalty. Empirical evidence suggests that CSR helps manufacturing firms survive major natural disasters by motivating employees, which leads to higher post-disaster productivity, and keeping customers, which leads to more stable post-disaster sales.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102675"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142357548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Johannes A. Barg , Wolfgang Drobetz , Sadok El Ghoul , Omrane Guedhami , Henning Schröder
{"title":"Institutional dual ownership and voluntary greenhouse gas emission disclosure","authors":"Johannes A. Barg , Wolfgang Drobetz , Sadok El Ghoul , Omrane Guedhami , Henning Schröder","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102671","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102671","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper shows evidence of a positive relationship between institutional dual holders, who hold both equity and debt in a firm, and voluntary greenhouse gas (GHG) emission disclosure. Considering dual holders as particularly risk-sensitive institutional investors, we document that improvements in voluntary GHG emission disclosure are motivated by climate-conscious and risk-related considerations. The positive effect of institutional dual ownership is more pronounced in firms facing significant environmental risks, where disclosure enables clearer explanations and prevents exaggerated stakeholder reactions. The impact of dual ownership is also stronger in firms with poor information environments, where dual holders exploit their enhanced monitoring capacity through gathering information from both their public equity and private debt holdings. Consistent with our risk-based explanation, voluntary GHG emission disclosure reduces the cost of equity and increases firm valuation in firms with higher dual ownership.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"89 ","pages":"Article 102671"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142536027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}